Dr. Aaron K. Hostetter
Associate Professor
Dept of English & Communication
Email: akh58@camden.rutgers.edu
467 Armitage Hall,
311 North Fifth Street
Camden, New Jersey 08102
EDUCATION
Ph.D., English, Princeton University, December 2010
M.A., English, University of Colorado at Boulder, May 2003
B.A., English, University of Colorado at Boulder, December 1994
WORK EXPERIENCE
2017-present: Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University-Camden
2011-2017: Assistant Professor of English, Rutgers University-Camden
2005-2011: Assistant in Instruction, Princeton University
FELLOWSHIPS, AWARDS & GRANTS
National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute Seminar: “Teaching Beowulf in an Old Norse-Icelandic Context,” Kalamazoo, MI, June-July 2016 (Seminar Director: Jana K. Schulman).
Association for Princeton Graduate Alumni Teaching Award, May 2009.
BOOKS
Political Appetites: Food in Medieval English Romance. Columbus: The Ohio State University Press, 2017.
A Practical Guide to Teaching Beowulf (co-edited with Larry Swain). Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications. (forthcoming 2024).
PUBLICATIONS
“Tasting the Medieval Feast” in J. Michelle Coghlan, ed, The Cambridge Companion to Food and Literature (CUP, 2020).
“The Power of the Material in Beowulf” New Medieval Literatures 16 (2017): 33-64.
“Sir Gowther: Table Manners and Aristocratic Identity” Studies in Philology 114 (Summer 2017): 497-516.
“Elene,” “Christ 1, 2 & 3,” and “The Order of the World” entries for the Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Medieval British Literature (August 2017).
Spoiled or Splendid?: Speculations on a Cultural Misgiving.” eHumanista 25 (2013): 1-10.
“Food, Sovereignty and Social Order in Havelok the Dane,” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology 110 (January 2011): 53-77.
TRANSLATION PUBLICATIONS
“Two Riddles from the Exeter Book” [#28a & 21]. Ancient Exchanges January 2023 (Univ. of Iowa) n.p. URL: https://exchanges.uiowa.edu/ancient/issues/invention/two-riddles-from-the-exeter-book/
“Riddle 40/1.” Trinity Journal of Literary Translation. Summer 2023 (Trinity College Dublin) n.p. URL: TBA
TRANSLATION PROJECTS
The Old English Narrative Poetry Project (2007-present).
[This features both verse translations and blog posts on issues of translation and poetics]The Old English Homilarium (2017 PAUSED).
[This new project attempts to bring the vast & extant corpus of Old English homilies into Modern English]
PROJECTS IN PROGRESS
Old English Translation Beyond the Horizon: Breaking the Chains of Nostalgia (monograph in progress).
PAPERS, LECTURES, PANELS
“Deor & Authority: Allusion as Meme.” The International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2020.
[Video available here]“Competing Gustatory Isms in Andreas.” Medieval Academy of America, Emory University [coming soon, March 2018].
“Unnyt: Material Power in Beowulf.” Medieval Materiality, University of Colorado at Boulder, October 2014.
“The History of Encounter in the Anglo-Saxon Andreas.” Medieval Academy of America. University of California at Los Angeles, April 2014.
“Andreas as Blockbuster: Revision and Adaptation of an Ancient Poem.” Lunchtime Keynote Address. English Graduate Student Association Academic Conference. Rutgers University-Camden, April 2014.
“Feeding Aristocratic Identity in Sir Gowther.” Delaware Valley Medieval Association, The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, February 2012
Presenter, Translation Roundtable at Anglo-Saxon Futures 2, King’s College, London, April 2008.
“How Clæne is Clæne?: The Kosher Other in Judith,” Anglo-Saxon Futures, King’s College, London, April 2006.
“She’s a Real Dish: Meat and Gender in Le Roman de Silence,” Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, AZ, February 2005.
“In a Pryue Stede: Haunting Space and Speech in the ‘Incestuous Daughter,’ an Untitled Exemplum in Cambridge University Library Manuscript Ff.v.48,” Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association, Las Vegas, NV, June 2003.
“Sum Rex, Sum Princeps: Quotation and Ventriloquism in the Prologue of Piers Plowman,” The International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 2003.
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Anglo-Saxon language and literature
Translation and Translation theory
The Global Middle Ages
Food, cooking, and eating in medieval literature
Confessional and penitential literature
Queer theory
Marxist theory and cultural materialism
Romance, epic, and allegory
Piers Plowman and late medieval alliterative poetry
John Gower
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie QueeneHeroism and the construction of masculinities
Hip hop poetics & aesthetics
Funk politics & history
UNIVERSITY SERVICE – RUTGERS-CAMDEN
Chair, General Education Committee, 2020-present
Undergraduate Director, 2019-present
Chair, English Department Outreach Committee, 2017-present
Member at-Large, English Department Executive Council, 2014-present.
Senator, Rutgers-Camden College of Arts and Sciences Faculty Senate, 2014-present.
Undergraduate Committee, Rutgers-Camden English Department, 2011-present.
Professional Service
Book Review, Translating Early Medieval Poetry, Speculum 94 (April 2019).
Peer Reviewer, Critical Theory, 2018
Peer Reviewer, Monstrum, 2017
Peer Reviewer, Heroic Age, 2016
Executive Council, Delaware Valley Medieval Association, 2013-2015
Peer Reviewer, New Medieval Literatures, 2013
Peer Reviewer, Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 2013
Peer Reviewer, Food, Culture, and Society, 2012
Reviewer, Routledge Annotated Bibliography of English Studies Online, 2007-2009